Ray_Tracing_Workshop

Intro to Ray Tracing Workshop for ACM club at UC Merced

Setting Up the Project

Follow these steps to set up the project before the workshop, if you want to create your own ray tracer

Install Visual Studio

If you do not already have Visual Studio installed, follow these directions:

Go to https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/ and select "Download Visual Studio", then run VisualStudioSetup.exe

Once you get to the installation process, make sure you select "Desktop development with C++"

After Visual Studio is done installing, you can choose to log in through GitHub or Microsoft if you have an account

Install CMake

If CMake is not already installed, follow these directions:

Go to https://cmake.org/download/ and download cmake

During the installation process, it will ask you where you want it to be downloaded. Wherever is fine

After that, you can choose to add CMake as a desktop shortcut, otherwise remember where CMake was downloaded

Downloading the Project

Click on the green "<> Code" button in the repository, select Download ZIP, and extract the files into a folder

If you have Git or GitHub Desktop on your device, you can choose to download the project that way

Building the Project

Open the CMake GUI. This should be in your desktop shortcuts, or open the folder where you downloaded it and run bin/cmake-gui.exe

Once it opens, select "Browse Source" and navigate to the folder of the project you downloaded from GitHub

Select "Browse Build" and navigate to the same folder. Add "/cmake_build" at the end to put the built project in that folder. It will ask if you want to create a new foldercalled cmake_build, select yes

Once you are done, hit "Configure"

Make sure the correct version of Visual Studio is selected (In this case Visual Studio 17 2022), and make sure "Use Default Native Compilers" is selected

Click "Finish", then wait for configuration to complete. It should look like this:

Then click "Generate", and wait for the project generation to complete

Now, head over to the file location of the project and there should be a folder called cmake_build with a file "Ray_Tracing_Workshop.sln". Go ahead and open it with Visual Studio

Running the Project

With the project opened in Visual Studio, right click the project "Ray_Tracing_Workshop" and select "Set as Startup Project"

Now run "Local Windows Debugger" to build and run the project. If everything builds and compiles correctly, the project should start

Once you run the project and the window opens, you should see this:

You are now ready to start ray tracing!